I use my cell phone when I’m driving. I do that a LOT. I don’t always plug it into my headset. I can make a 90-degree turn with one hand and back the car into my garage with my head cocked to clamp my Sidekick to my left shoulder.

I know that I am statistically more likely to cause a crash than someone who does not engage in these renegade behaviors. If you can read (and I am assuming you can, since you are reading this), you’ve seen the news about states attempting to legislate drivers’ use of cell phones. It started in New York in 2001 and is slowly seeping across the country. Use headsets, some say. No cell phones at all, demand others.

But cell phones don’t cause crashes. PEOPLE cause crashes. People cause crashes because they are distracted by things. Cell phones can be distracting when they require a hand off the wheel to dial or hold the phone. Conversations on cell phones can distract the driver’s mind from the road. (So can conversations with passengers, especially children, who can poke you and throw things at your head.) Even the fancy-pants built-in Bluetooth cell phone stuff requires your attention for a moment. And so do your air conditioner, your stereo, your sunroof, your new talking GPS device and the thing that connects your iPod to the stereo with wires that always need rearranging.

But you know what else distracts drivers? Food. Glorious, glorious food.

I wonder how many accident scenes are littered with fries and spilled sodas. How many airbags are red with ketchup? How many accident victims have to have their throats cleared by medics in order to keep them from choking on the bite of Half-Pound Beef and Potato Burrito that distracted them for one crucial moment?

Here again, I’m guilty. I do love the drive-thru. Eating on the road is the start of my morning multi-tasking, balancing an Egg McMuffin on my left thigh and holding the wheel with one hand still greasy from a Hash Brown as I slog through the traffic to work. I pick up food on the way home and can’t wait the two minutes it takes to get to my house before reaching into the bag for a nibble. It smells GOOD.
I can watch the road while I talk. If I’m driving and talking on a cell phone, I can drop the phone and grab the wheel and engage in evasive maneuvers in a split-second if necessary. But think about it – would you be so quick to drop your meatball sandwich on your wool pants? Have you ever tried to get barbeque sauce out of suede? Mustard out of corduroy?

It’s a heck of a lot harder than getting dust off a cell phone.

Yet EVERYONE eats on the road. Watch the cars coming off the drive-thru line sometime, especially those with just one person inside. Straw wrappers flying, napkins flopping, hot sauce packets squirting everywhere… The clever driver parks and arranges his picnic before pulling onto the road, but even he is not safe from the sudden stop. One hand grips the wheel, the other reaches instinctively to protect the chili-cheese Super Cholesterol Burger. Or he fails to see another car pull out in front of him because he has turned his head to see if there might be one more onion ring in the bag. Maybe he struggles to make a tight turn because his hand, damp from the condensation on the cheap paper cup, slips on the steering wheel.

A driver with food is just as distracted as a driver with a cell phone. Perhaps more distracted, especially now that drive-thru restaurants are coming up with messier and messier things for us to order. Tomatoes are slippery and ranch dressing is a fine lubricant.

Sometimes you have to slap laws around something just because some people are stupid. Guns, drugs, booze… all legislated because some people are dumb and can’t handle themselves. Missouri can go ahead and outlaw handheld cell phones for drivers. I’ll dig up the headset that hurts my ear, and my fellow drivers and I will be safer because of it.* It’s probably a smart thing, but it’s not a catch-all.

But just like there will always be idiots who drive drunk, there will always be idiots who drive sober and distracted. I honestly don’t believe that outlawing handheld cell phones will make a huge difference. Drive-thru food was just an example really, an example to make the point that we can’t scapegoat any one thing and blame it for an ever-increasing number of car accidents.

Everything distracting is increasing. Roadsides are cluttered with visual diversions. Until we can get rid of funny billboards and sign-wavers, we’ll still be distracted. Our cars are full of buttons and buzzers and fun new toys. Until we refuse to let someone drive his new car off the lot unless he can operate all of its functions blindfolded, we’ll still be distracted. The population is booming. Until we make all babies and small children stay at home until they know how to behave in a vehicle, we’ll still be distracted.

Stupid people will still find something stupid to do in the car because let’s face it: driving is pretty boring sometimes. And stupid always prevails.

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* But don’t take my McMuffin, or I am moving to Canada.